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Learn number bases

Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2018 9:39 pm
by [-hh]
Try this new display of encoded decimals of the time items (hours, minutes, seconds) with kids around 10 years old and older:
http://forums.livecode.com/viewtopic.ph ... 08#p172308

You will be surprised: They have, after 10 minutes of exercise no problem with reading and writing to base 15 or 16. (I tried with 5 kids of age 10-14).

Base 15 is a method to display and write the quarters of an hour (and of a minute):
You display as minutes the number of full quarters of an hour in digit 1 and the number of minutes in the next incomplete quarter in digit 2.
(The image below shows three full quarters of the current hour and 11 minutes in the last quarter.
  

Re: Learn number bases

Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2020 6:42 pm
by [-hh]
I cannot change the dead links of the forum-post in the original post of this thread. So let me explain more here.

Download the widget and a sample stack from
(EU) https://hyperhh.de/widgets/index-large.html
(US) https://hh.on-rev.com/widgets/index-large.html

BaseClock is a widget that displays by special "digits" the time encoded to a number base in range 2-60.
Encoded is each of the time items (hours, minutes, seconds). For base 2 this is known as "Binary encoded decimals".

The display is unique (I invented that) as it doesn't use characters for digits > 9 but decimal "columns".

This is easy to read and (manually) to write, for the electronic "writing" we use pathes.
If the math seems difficult to you start with base 11. This means the first digit has to be multiplied by 11, the second digit adds to that, for example 42 is 4 x 11 +2 = 46.
Then go to base 12, where 42 is 4 x 12 + 2 = 50.
In base 9 is 42 read as 4 x 9 + 2 = 38.
And so on (up to base 60 and down to base 5, bases 2-4 have no digit 4).

The sample stack displays 17 clocks to different number bases. One display cycle for a display at each full second is done by every display in < 3 millisecs (compute and paint)!
And it has a substack that is prepared for displaying a baseClock "window shaped".

There are 16 options for the display, see the dictionary or open the property inspector.
Note. Some properties of the widget are triggered by the timer, which is (as all timers) stopped in the property inspector. So you may see the changes not before going back to browse mode.

Or look at an implementation as html5 standalone ("web app") here
(EU) https://hyperhh.de/html5/index-large.html
(US) https://hh.on-rev.com/html5/index-large.html

The source code of the widget (LC Builder) is included. See the description on the download page of the widget how to get it.
The source code of the html standalone (LC Script) can be get via https://hyperhh.de/html5/baseClocks2-8.0.2.zip

Re: Learn number bases

Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2020 6:45 pm
by richmond62
The peasant from the Scottish village asks, "What is the point of this?"

Re: Learn number bases

Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2020 7:14 pm
by [-hh]
The point is that not only kids but also people like you learn to use number bases. Just try to write and read for example the time in base 60.
If you ask for the purpose of using number bases, it's like using a foreign language (for you: basic math).

Re: Learn number bases

Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2020 7:40 pm
by richmond62
[-hh] wrote:
Fri Mar 13, 2020 7:14 pm
Just try to write and read for example the time in base 60.
As I am not Ashurbanipal I probably will pass that one up.

http://www.math.ucdenver.edu/~jloats/St ... umbers.pdf

I really wonder what was going round inside the heads of the Sumerians when, presumably, they also only had 10 fingers.
-
AshurbanipalRed.jpg
OK, OK, he was Assyrian.